The new president of NBC News sees no reason to change a policy that allows his anchors to front entertainment events – like the recent Thanksgiving Day parade that saw Katie Couric and Matt Lauer miss an obvious news story.
NBC News President Steve Capus said he's comfortable with the explanation that the "Today" anchors didn't know that a balloon's tethers had knocked off part of a street lamp in Times Square, injuring two spectators, before parade coverage was done.
"It's safe to say that if a news event happens while news personnel are on the air, they are going to cover it as news," he said. "That's in their DNA. They want to cover stories."
That's exactly what happened during CBS' parade coverage, compounding NBC's embarrassment and raising anew the risk to a news person's credibility when involved in entertainment events. Even though news personalities were on the air, the parade coverage was produced by NBC's entertainment division.
If Couric and Lauer weren't told what was happening, they were very poorly served by the people they were working with, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. It may be a small hit to their reputation, "but a series of small hits can end a career," he said.
ABC News said it doesn't allow its journalists to do entertainment. CBS News said it decides on a case-by-case basis.
In nearly every news production control room, there's a monitor or two tuned in to the competition. That wasn't the case with the NBC entertainment producers, a spokeswoman said. If there were monitors, someone would certainly have noticed CBS' Hannah Storm and Dave Price interrupting their parade coverage to discuss the incident at 11:32 a.m.
No closure for 'Reunion' fans
"Reunion" fans looking for some semblance of closure from Fox's recently axed drama might want to look elsewhere. Show execs have concluded it simply is not possible to wrap up the central murder mystery nine "years" sooner than planned.
Executive producer Jon Feldman explains in a statement, "Because the events of Samantha's murder are partially reliant on characters we haven't yet met – and events we haven't yet seen – there is no way to solve the mystery of her murder without being able to complete the full arc of our story through the present day." The final episode airs Feb. 2.
– COMPILED BY LISA SULLIVAN FROM NEWS SERVICE REPORTS
